vancouver

Beluga

I was in the Vancouver Airport waiting for my flight to leave when I started this blog; two weeks in Vancouver for an externship at the aquarium. Saw lots of different animals, learned a few things along the way - including that public transportation and 14 degree ocean water are not good for the immune system.

Sea Otters

Harbour Seal

Even when I started this post I was very excited to be done and going home. Vancouver is a very beautiful city, but it was cold and wet and I was just a visitor. I wanted to be home.

Pacific White-Sided Dolphin



Harbour Porpoise


But then a very strange thing happened. I flew into Saskatoon, and everything was very different. The city was still the same, I suppose, but something had shifted. Something significant. And it got me thinking about changes. How even tiny changes can throw you off, or how its not always that around you which changes, but maybe something inside yourself. Perhaps it is simply perception.

Sea Anemone

This was a strange sort of change. One that had been brewing away that entire two weeks, slowly building up and rolling over like a thunderstorm ready to break. But I didn't see it, didn't notice it, until that afternoon when I watched out of the airport and everything that should feel right and natural suddenly felt bizarre.

Jellyfish

Now this city that felt like home, that I was so eager to get back to, feels strange and foreign to me. In as much as I don't want to return to Vancouver, I also have an overwhelming urge that I don't want to stay here. But as to where I want to go instead, I am at a loss. I feel stranded, abandoned, without a home.


Clown Fish



Striped Sea Horse



Macaws

Ibis


But, there are options. Make this place feel like home again, strange and unfitting as it seems; or change location and find somewhere that does. Unfortunately by means of my education I am stuck in this city for at least another six months. But maybe after that, I'll know. Maybe I'll know where I need to go.